His Irreplaceable Love.

Chapter Seventeen

Presentations of the projects.

Two weeks later,

Alina was worried about the video that Matthew had taken of her rummaging through Aliya's locker. She couldn't even tell her mother about it, as Rukiya wouldn't hesitate to beat her without any regret in her heart.

What will I do now if Mom finds out about what I did? Instead of her love, I will get the hatred that she always had for Aliya. Even though I don't even know what wrong she did to her,

"Alina, are you ready to leave for school? You better get good results or else I won't hesitate to let you go to bed hungry or even punish you more than Aliya," her mother Rukiya tells her as soon as she sees Alina dressed and ready to go to school.

"Yes, mum. I will get better results, In shaa Allah," Aliya says, praying and hoping that she won't disappoint her mother.

Ya Allah, I hope that Matthew didn't send the video to anyone in school or even show it to anyone who would try to use it against me. Because I did what my mother wanted and for her love. I know that what I did was wrong, but for my mother, the bad things I did to Aliya were correct, and she deserved them because of what happened to our mothers.

Rukiya smiled, knowing that her daughter would do what she couldn't do to Aliya.

But in Alina's heart, she knew what she did was wrong, but how can she tell her mother that she is wrong when her heart is filled with hatred for Aliya?

Alina wanted Aliya to be her sister, but every time she would want to spend time with her, her mother would tell her bad things that Aliya did to her that weren't true and didn't even happen.

Alina needed to talk to Matthew first before joining her group to present their project. She was hoping to catch him alone and not with his group, but unfortunately, he wasn't alone, which made it impossible to get him away from them.

Matthew looked up just to see Alina walking away while wiping the tears from her face. He knew that she needed someone, even if they were just schoolmates and nothing more.

"I will be right back; I need to do something," Matthew tells Aliya and Red, who knew what he needed to do.

"Go ahead and don't worry. We will text you when they start calling us," Red tells him.

They watched as Matthew walked in the same direction as Alina did. They knew that Alina and Matthew needed to talk about the video.

Matthew caught up with Alina and called her.

"Alina, wait up," he says, moving closer to her.

She stopped walking and waited until he caught up with her. Thankfully, there was an empty classroom where they both walked inside so that they could talk freely.

"What's wrong?" Matthew asked as soon as he saw the dried tears on Alina's face.

"Nothing..."

"Don't say nothing is wrong, Lina. You and I both know it isn't nothing," he tells her, moving closer to her. "You know that you can't hide your emotions from me," he added, surprising her.

"What did you do about the video?" Alina asks him nervously. "Forget it..."

"I destroyed it. I couldn't show it to anyone. Everyone deserves a second chance to change themselves," he says, cutting her off.

Alina was shocked to hear this from him, especially after what she had done to him, Aliya, and even Hamza.

"Why?..."

"Because I am friends with people who won't hurt someone that I..."

Matthew couldn't even continue what he was saying when they were interrupted by someone at the door. They turned and saw that it was Hamza standing there, fuming mad.

"What are you doing with him?" He asked angrily while looking at Matthew with anger in his eyes.

Alina looked at Matthew, who just smiled at her, assuring her that her secret was safe with him.

"I was giving her a book that I had borrowed a few months ago, and I didn't need it anymore," Matthew tells them. He then walked out, looking at Alina with a smile on his face.

Alina knew that what Matthew told her was true because no teacher had approached her, and even Aliya didn't even say anything about the video. But the question that Alina has in her mind is what Matthew wanted to say before they were interrupted by Hamza.

"Are you okay? Did he do something to hurt you?" Hamza asks her. He was starting to be protective of her because of the rumors that never went away about Aliya and Zayn.

The same rumors that Alina started because of her jealousy towards Aliya, who has done nothing to her, yet Alina didn't care about hurting her sister in every way she could.

"I am okay. He didn't do anything; he just gave me my book back." Alina lies to Hamza, knowing that it's better that way because if he knew the real reason, he would hate her as much as she hates herself for what happened to Aliya.

I need to ask her to forgive me, even though it will be behind Mom's back. I need her as my sister because I can't hurt her more than I already have. I took Hamza from her, and now she must have saved me from getting expelled from school a few months before graduation. I am thankful to her for doing this for me, even though I didn't deserve it.

"Are you sure that he didn't hurt you with his words?" Hamza asks her, trying to get her to tell him what happened before he came inside the classroom.

"I promise you that I am okay and there's nothing to worry about," Alina assured him. "We need to go before we get called by our teachers to do the presentation," she added, walking out of the classroom with Hamza following her.

When they arrived at the auditorium, they were just in time to see Aliya and her group representing their project.

The word family was written in bold on the board behind them.

So this is their mystery project.

Hamza looked at Aliya, who was smiling at Matthew while handing him the ruler to move on to the next topic of the project. He felt the need to get out of there but stayed because of Alina.

He still couldn't believe that Aliya was in a relationship with her 'cousin'. Hamza was so sure that they were just cousins, not lovers.

"Family, there are many meanings that you can find in the dictionary and also in Google. But the love that they have for each other has no meaning because it is true and pure love that a mother and a father feel for their kids, no matter how old they are. But we also need to remember that blood doesn't make you family. It makes you only blood related," Aliya says to the crowd while looking at both Hamza and Alina, who were staring at her. "In most families, you can't always have a mother and a father together because things aren't what they seem to be. A few of you might disagree with me, but I want you to see a few things that a great woman, a great mother, has endured in her life until the day she died," she added, showing the slides from her mother's diaries. But Aliya and her group had changed the names to make sure that this didn't go back to Rukiya or even her so-called father.

The slides show every pain that Farha felt while living in that house. Aliya quickly blinked her tears and turned to face away from the crowd, who were shocked to see what was in front of them.

But that didn't go unnoticed by Hamza, and he had no right to even think of her as he saw Zayn walking towards her.

Alina could see the damage that she had done to both Hamza and Aliya. She made them enemies, just like her mother wanted.

I need to apologize to her and maybe get her to forgive me. But the main question is: how?